Gekisou Sentai Carranger (激走戦隊カーレンジャー,Gekisō Sentai Kārenjā?, translated into English as Racing Squadron Carranger) was Toei's 20th production of the Super Sentai television series. Its footage was used in the American Power Rangers Turbo. Carranger was unique in its nature, due to being a Sentai series that is portrayed as a parody of the Sentai genre itself.

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Plot

Dappu, a young alien from the planet Hazard, is forced to leave his home after it is destroyed by the Universal Reckless Driving Tribe Bowzock, a gang of wild thugs who run rampant throughout the universe by causing chaos on planets before ultimately blowing them up. Dappu has knowledge of "Carmagic", a special magic connected to five "car constellations" that give great power. When the Bowzock decide their next target of destruction as Earth, Dappu discovers the power of the five constellations within five beings on the planet, who possess Carmagic within them and the ability to harness the power into becoming the Gekisou Sentai Carranger which can stand up to the space thugs. The five turn out to be five workers at the Pegasus Garage who unknowingly had chosen these constellations as their "dream cars" they ultimately wish to build. When Dappu enters into their lives, they are forced to become the Carranger and stand up to the Bowzock...whether they want to or not!

Stage Shows

Notes

The commercial sequence for CarRanger, or "Eyecatch", showing a Ranger Vehicle racing forward, was kept for Power Rangers Turbo

Though without a traditional Sixth Ranger, this season possessed a wannabe Sixth in Radietta Fanbelt, a fangirl who claimed to be the "White Racer" of the season. An official Sentai fan becoming a Sixth would actually occur in Gokaiger.

This is the first of two series to change the opening theme song: from episode 14 to the end, the "Full Accel" version of the "Gekisou Sentai Carranger" is used as the theme song, with the original version only being used again in the closing credits of the final episode. The only other season to do this completely changed the entire opening.

This season possesses the first time that a mecha has interchangable parts, as shown with the bizarre formation of the Scramble Intersection Robo. While used for comedy at this time, this would foreshadow the multi-combination mechs that would become standard in Sentai starting with Gaoranger.

This is the second season with a "vs. movie" but the first to treat it as an event instead of merely an extra episode as Ohranger had.

Though Carranger was not treated as an anniversary season due to Ohranger, it would be the only one within a 5-year sequence which would have a traditional "vs movie", due to the first "vs. Super Sentai" movie appearing 5 years later with the anniversary being counted by season instead of by years since Gorenger.

While many Western fans call Carranger "The Season that saved Super Sentai" as toy sales were good enough to keep the series going, the reality was that the Super Sentai series was still under the possible threat of cancellation after Ohranger's ratings. The ratings struggled to fully recover for several series and did not fully return to a more normal viewing level until Seijuu Sentai Gingaman[1]